Google Docs for desktop and Android updated with voice typing, integrated search, and other new features

Google has updated its Docs, Sheets and Slides for desktop by adding some nifty features such as voice typing, better search functionality and new collaboration tools. These new features are specially aimed at students, but they are also available for anyone who uses Google’s productivity suite.

The new in-app features are designed to manipulate and quickly add data and content. The first feature coming to Google Docs is called ‘Research’, which allows users to make a Google search from within the app. It also allows users to insert photos directly from Google Images.

The second feature is Voice Typing. It is available within the ‘Tools’ menu, using which users can directly speak into their computers, and the feature is available in more than 40 languages and it can understand punctuation notes too.

Google Docs update also includes new collaborative tools, which shows all changes made to the doc, including last user who opened the document. There is also a ‘See Changes’ button on the top right corner of the doc for easy access. Thus, when users are working in groups, one can easily pinpoint who made changes and where.

The new updates don’t end here. Google has also updated Sheets with new tools to help users look at their data in interesting ways. The feature is called ‘Explore’, which allows any table in Sheets to be analyzed and turned into charts or graphs. Users can either select specific sections or the entire sheet data to work with.

Other minor changes come in the form of UI, to make navigation easier. All of these updates are now available for both desktop and Android users.